


Blink

by takenbynumbers



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Gen, Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:15:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27523690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/takenbynumbers/pseuds/takenbynumbers
Summary: There is a glitch in reality for Tseng and his Turks.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 14





	Blink

**Author's Note:**

  * For [j_marquis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/j_marquis/gifts).



> Came from a prompt: Tseng and his Turks, Cosmic Horror. Post AC except it follows no square enix canon, so...AU.

There had been what Tseng could only describe as a _blink_. A sudden glitch. He had been chatting with Reno, with Rude and Elena, just on the outskirts of Kalm and suddenly there was nothing but _blackness_. It encompassed his entire senses, nothing but a horrific feeling of _emptiness_ and nothingness. It lasted for no longer than a second, but when he looked at Reno, he knew. Knew it wasn’t just him. And the look on Rude and Elena’s face confirmed it.

“What the actual fuck.” Reno’s hands was shaking as he pulled out a cigarette, lighting it clumsily. Tseng exhaled heavily, flexing his fingers. Trying to ensure he was still alive.

“I don’t know. I…there was nothing.”

Elena shuddered. “You think it has to do with…?”

Tseng grabbed the cigarette from Reno as soon as he put it to his mouth, inhaling sharply, coughing at the acrid smoke in his lungs but it was _something_. “No. I don’t know. It’s nothing…it wasn’t even death. Or the Lifestream. Those feel warmer. Comforting.”

It was the bleakness that worried Tseng the most. All his life, even on the verge of death, of sinking into the Lifestream, he had never experienced that sensation before.

*  
  


Back at the lodge, he buried himself in paperwork, waiting for something drastic to happen. When they had come to Rufus of their shared experience, he had just shrugged. Dismissed it. There wasn’t enough details to concern him over, and Tseng was almost _angry_ at his lack of empathy. But he hadn’t experienced what they did. Finally, too worked up, he got up from the desk and stretched his arms above his head. Maybe it really was nothing. Except for all the strangeness that had happened in their lives, that moment of -

_Everyone seems to be asleep._

Tseng blinked. His heart started racing. “What?”

Nothing. The whisper that was not, continued in a low distorted tone.

_Everyone seems to be asleep._

The door opened, and Reno careened in, shortly followed by Rude and Elena. “Yo, boss?”

“Can you…?”

_Everyone seems to be asleep_.

Rude took off his sunglasses, hand trembling with the action. “Boss, what _is_ that?” The million gil question that Tseng couldn’t answer. It sounded distorted, as though it was all around them, pulsing a message in his head. For once, Reno seemed stunned into silence. And for a moment, all Tseng could hear was his own hurried heartbeat, the constant tinnitus a background hum that was usually a comfort but not now, all his sense on edge for –

_EVERYONE SEEMS TO BE ASLEEP_.  
  
  


*  
  


His awareness has dissipated. Drifting on high, a swirling collective of anxiety and sweat, fear and the agony of a gunshot wound. It was not the same blankness as the first occurrence of peculiarity, but it was twisted in its own way. A branch twisted against nothing, jutting from solid bone of what could only be described as a tree, yellowed and cracked, the blackest of black seeping out in smoke-like tendrils.

Tseng was not standing, nor was he floating or suspended. His feet – an extension of his legs, connected to nothing. As the branch swayed, the sense of _being_ here before – wherever it was – the bones crackle in recognition as he gets closer.

To his left, Rude and Reno were suspended, intertwined by red rope. Nothing was happening and yet they moved, jerking in an unfamiliar way in Tseng's eyes. A blossom of green spilled forth from the back of Rude’s head, gushing downwards in slow motion.

**_Everyone is awake._ **

Elena stepped next to him, her small hand slipping into his. The words that come out of her mouth were unfamiliar to Tseng’s ears. A high ringing, and he turned to look at her, watching as her eyes started shifting. Blinking in and out of existence, scratched out of nothing and leaving behind white space. Nothing and everything, and a kaleidoscope of colour suddenly appeared before her eyes went back to normal.

The process repeated.

Tseng let go of her hand, but Elena continued to stay by his side, as he drifted. The realm – such as it was – covered by the branches, the shift of sounds around him. Flashes of blue and red flickered in his vision. Sepia shifted in, and he could see his face – mangled, bruised. Masamune glinting in sunlight, a relic of the past.

Diamond reptilian green patterns covered Rude and Reno, and they were pulled down, a pile in front of Tseng’s body. Sweat beaded on his brow, and he looked up, watching as the atmosphere breathed in, out. Squirmed around him. A phantasmagoria of marble and sand burst out of the bone tree and –

**_Everyone is awake._ **

Tseng was breathing hard, eyes wide. The ringing was in his ear – tinny and high, and if he kept listening he _would_ die. There was no escape.

He could hear a door opening, and Rufus stood in front of him. Body twisted, collapsing in on itself into a swirl of black and white, spiralling in confusion, in sweet release. Tseng could see a metallic flickering, on the peripheral of his vision and he tried to turn.

A long thin blade stabbed through his chest. He looked down, felt no pain. No sensation at all. Everything had…blinked out of existence. All that remained was the same all-encompassing black nothingness, curling around his body and mind, crushing his skull and leaving behind brain matter and congealed blood. It wanted his bones for the tree. Sacrifice for the tree. Everyone is awake. All that would remain was his muscle memory, summoning forth the sins of the past.

A crack, and separation was complete.

_Everyone seems to be asleep_.

*

  
  
Reno stirred first. His eyes widened, he touched his face, feeling skin, sensations that were familiar. Uncaring what he had seen, and altogether terrified of addressing it, he looked around. Tseng’s office. Their office. Rude was sitting up against the door, pale enough to show on his dark complexion. Elena, quietly sobbing, holding her face…no, her eyes. Touching her brow, down her nose, back up.

Tseng was the first to speak, leaning against the wall, pallor almost ghost-like and shaking. “We need…”

A bell struck thrice, and Tseng’s eyes flashed white, then his entre body. Reno watched as his boss flickered out of existence, once, twice, accompanied by a high pitched drone.

**_EVERYONE IS AWAKE._ **

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on twitter: takenbynumbers.


End file.
